82redleg,
In my personal IMO no not really.
However, even though I'm not schooled on the exact details of Afpak/ I haven't been to the region or dealed with the Taliban in any capacity. But looking at things from the Taliban POV, I figure they did have at least some incentive to seriously talk to the Coalition/Afghan Government. Because if we were willing to consider talking to them in the first place, the Taliban could only gain from such an exercise. Even though I think they were unlikely to follow through on their end of the bargain/give anything back in return.
Kind of along the lines of how North Vietnam benefited from talks with the US/S. Vietnam back in the late 60's/early 70's.
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